Carl's Keys to the Game vs. Seattle Sounders FC

As well as we have been doing on the road of late, our home form as been even better. We’re one of only two remaining undefeated teams at home, with FC Dallas being the other.

It’s another Cascadia game in front of a sellout crowd and we need to get the monkey off our backs and get our first victory versus the Sounders.

There is no reason why we should not win this game, we are on a tremendous run at home scoring goals, and in the last three matches we’ve only conded twice.

Now we return to play in front of our fans who will be willing our boys on to our first Cascadia victory.

Obafemi Martins

Martins opens the scoring against D.C. United

The Nigerian striker is doing what he has done for every club he has played for. This is a quality striker that has been a handful in every league he has played in.

Martins is in good form too. He scored two goals for Seattle in their last game versus D.C.

When Andy O’Brien went down in the previous game in Seattle, Martins took advantage of that and gave our defence a torrid time, thus enabling the Sounders to come back from 2-1 down to win the game 3-2.

He is a busy player with and without the ball and we will need to contain him to have a chance to win the game.

Maintain a high tempo

Camilo gets the crowd going before halftime

With the home crowd behind us and this being a rivalry game, you have to believe that we will start off really fast.

The players know how much this means to the fans and will know if we play with a high tempo it will be hard for the Sounders to keep up with us. This will be our third game in a week with a lot of travel involved as well, but we will need to keep the pace up and keep the crowd energized.

Seattle will be looking to keep it tight the first 15 to 20 minutes and try to take the crowd out of the game.

There is sure to be some tired legs but the adrenaline will be kicking in as the boys look to continue this impressive streak. This is where fresh legs could help, as we could see Young-Pyo Lee, Gershon Koffie and even Andy O’Brien come into the lineup. Our Players will have not forgotten how we let slip a 2-1 lead in Seattle and a perfect remedy will be a win and another swarming home performance.